by Elsa Jade
“I suppose the darkness helps with that,” she conceded. “But keeping all the senses open and aware is a witch’s trick too, not just for shifters.”
He nodded as he reached behind him to swing open the gate. “No wonder we get along so well.”
She smirked at him. “Well, that and the sexy times.”
The velvety rumble of his laugh rolled over her again, somehow even more intimate in the darkness. “Let’s go before we don’t care that we make things awkward for your sisters.”
She had to admit it was becoming less of a concern with every pulse of her blood. She followed him out the gate to the desert beyond. As her eyes adjusted, the starlight seemed brighter than ever. As they walked, the maze of sagebrush and saltbush seemed to part magically in front of them, and she realized he knew exactly where to walk in this rough, wild land. In the pale glow, he pointed out the tracks of jackrabbits and fence lizards and horny toads and the delicate sweep left by feathers—the mark left by a hunting owl grabbing one of the aforementioned creatures. A larger set of tracks he identified as coyote. “Not shifter,” he clarified. “Too small.”
Taking a Leatherman from his back pocket, he sliced open a fruit from a prickly pear cactus—avoiding the many, tiny thorns—to let her suck the water. The warm, earthy flavor eclipsed the lingering tang of wine.
“It tastes a little like berry tea,” she said. “Does it have any historical medicinal purpose like pine needle tea?”
He paused, the glint of the knife in the moonlight not quite as bright as the flash of his grin. “You probably know a lot of this already, don’t you?”
She lifted one eyebrow. “Witch, remember? When I joined Aunt Tilda here, I knew I had a lot to learn.”
“So basically I’ve been shifter-splaining to you all night.” He shook his head. “You could just tell me to shut up.”
“I like listening to you talk,” she admitted. “And I still have a lot to learn.”
“Not so innocent,” he murmured.
She hummed low in the back of her throat, where the wine and the cactus tea had mingled into something wild and sweet. “What else would you teach me?”
“That sexy times in the sand is a terrible idea.” He took a long step around her, stopping her in her tracks, like that owl had stopped its prey. “But a kiss would be one way to shut me up.”
She took another step toward him to close the distance between them and let her crutches dangle from the cuffs as she skimmed her palms up his chest. The night breeze breathing off the mesa should have cooled her. But the fluttering ends of her clothes and locks of her hair tickled her over-sensitive skin until she felt like every nerve was set to flame.
“I do owe you a bite,” she told him.
Standing so close, she felt the fine shudder that racked him at her words. Oh, he liked that idea, did he? Slowly, she fisted her hand in his shirt, and the pressure snapped the pearl buttons wide. A fine sheen of sweat on the rich hue of his skin in the shadows turned his chest to a sculpture of black ice. But the lustful heat simmering from him was incandescent.
With his body as support, she didn’t need her crutches, and she angled herself upright on tiptoes to crash her lips into his. With a deep groan—not velvet, not ice, but undeniable need—he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her up against his chest. The scars he’d left on his own skin when he’d tried to reach for his beast had almost healed, but under her palms flat against his bare skin, his heartbeat was a furious, thundering storm. With each beat, he took the kiss deeper until she was clinging to him.
When he finally lifted his head, their lips parted with a soft smack. Her gasp of pleasure and protest at the end was even softer, but the way his arms tightened around her made up for the loss of his mouth.
His dark eyes glittered in the starlight as he stared down at her. “I’ve thought about this,” he rumbled.
“Sexy times in the sand? It does have a nice bookend feel to lovemaking in a lake.”
He shook his head. “Not that. Not just that. You.” The lock of his arms around her tightened another degree. “I’ve been thinking of you.”
The pang of satisfaction and the knee-jerk thought she should deny his words rippled through her like opposing waves. “You’re supposed to be romancing your bear,” she reminded him. But her voice wobbled with the steadiness of his gaze.
“And yet I find myself thinking every moment not how my bear might find me but how I can make my way back to you.”
His words sparked a sparkling thrill in her even as the wobbly feeling remained, like a roman candle threatening to tip over, burning beautifully but perilous. She shook her head hard, the razor cut ends her bob lashing her cheeks. “It’s not me,” she warned him. No matter how much she might wish otherwise… “You’re just feeling empty without your beast, and you’re looking for the easiest way to fill the void.”
His lips curved, an expression of such amusement and hunger she suddenly knew what it felt to be hunted. “It’s not just me that’s empty,” he said, his voice a rough purr. “And trust me when I say nothing about you is easy.”
“You’re only saying that because I forced you off with a rifle.” She splayed her hands across his bare chest where she would have shot him if he hadn’t left her sister and Ben alone. Now…
She couldn’t imagine how she’d make that choice again. This was why the circle taught that a woman needed to hold her power for the good of her circle, because everyone would want a piece of it. And yet all she wanted was to entwine herself with this big, enigmatic male.
“It wasn’t just when you threatened to kill me,” he said. “Although there’ve been times when I wanted to give up, and I would’ve happily given myself to your bullet.” He bowed his head, touching his shorn locks to her crown. “You know the first time I saw you?”
She swallowed. “At the summer solstice fest,” she said. “When Aster wandered off. I remember you said you’d help look for him.” She frowned. “I wanted to set up a search grid, and you said you’d go by yourself.” She fisted her hand against his chest and gave him a light thump. “You messed up my tidy grid.”
The heave of his chest as he huffed out a laugh lifted her hands. “I couldn’t let any of the other shifters see that I couldn’t control my change. But that wasn’t the first time.” He loosed one hand from behind her and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’d just come to Angels Rest,” he murmured. “Your aunt had announced herself to the wolf pack alpha—being neighborly and all, she said. So word that there were witches in Angels Rest was quite the topic of conversation among shifters, as you might imagine. We all wanted a look at you. I saw you when you pulled into town in that yellow VW bus to help her open the shop. You stepped out of the sliding door and your feet hit the pavement like a princess surveying her new kingdom.”
She blinked at him. “That was years ago. My sisters and I were still in school when Aunt Tilda decided to move here. We took a week off to help her get settled.” She gazed at him. “How did I miss seeing you?”
He chuckled. “We’re pretty good about not being seen but we don’t want to be.”
She lifted her chin. “And why would you not want to be seen by me?”
“I was no king then, to court a princess.” His smile faltered. “That was before our trouble with the Kingdom Guard attacking the town’s shifters. If I’d known then…” He shook his head. “I wish I got to know you then, talked to your aunt. Maybe then we would’ve had more help on our side and we wouldn’t have lost anyone.”
It was her turn to lock her arms around him.
“If you’d talked to me, I would’ve expired of shock right on the spot. And then I wouldn’t have been any use to you in your battle.” She laced her fingers at his spine, holding him close. “But now I’m here to help.”
He feathered his fingers through the hair at her nape where the heat had left little auburn curls and then let his hands slide down her shoulders, down to where the cuffs of her
crutches wrapped around her forearms. Gently but inexorably breaking her hold, he took a half step back, putting that small distance between them. His shirt that she’d pushed aside fell back into place. “What if I told you I don’t want your help anymore?”
She stiffened. Without the support of his body, she shoved the tips of her crutches into the sand and stared up at him. The starlight that seemed like a wash of fairytale silver just heartbeat ago cast his features into harsh shadow. “But that kiss—”
“That is what I want from you,” he interrupted. His dark eyes locked on her. “Not your help, not some magical rose, not the king bear. I want your kiss, and your touch is the only magic I need. I want you as my princess.”
She stared up at him in confusion, her heart pounding. “Thor. What about your clan?”
“Following our old ways didn’t keep us out of trouble.” He scrubbed his palms over his hips. “I guess hearing how your sister is following the shadow path made me think there could be a new way for the clan.”
Even with her crutches under her, her knees wobbled. She’d stepped out into the desert for more kisses, not…not this much more.
“Our world is changing,” he said. “And maybe the fact that I’m not anymore could make the difference in helping the clan regain its footing in the Four Corners.”
“But when the rex ursi comes back…” She spread her hand over his chest again, the lump of the flask centered under her palm. The hard thud of his heart seemed amplified like a drum by the crystal vessel.
He put his hand over hers, squeezing her fingers. “It’s not coming back.” His voice was soft but steady. “The beast doesn’t need a trap or a homing beacon or even wooing. And if it did need those things, then I wasn’t the right person. The rex ursi knows where it’s meant to be.” He threaded his fingers through hers, entangling their hands. “As I’m meant to be with you.”
For a moment, her heartbeat seemed to stop, her breath suspended like a rose in magic. The starlight illuminating the desert felt like water closing over her head. Then, with an electric tingle in her blood, the same as when a spell came together, time resumed, and she held him tight. So rock-steady under her hand, his heartbeat a metronome, his body like the mesa that never changed. Of course she was tempted by him. Maybe he really was done trying to reclaim his bear, but her whole being yearned to offer itself in place of the beast.
Despite her hand on his chest and her crutch buried in the earth, she wavered. She had no doubt he’d always be there for her, no matter what. She had people who needed her too. For the first time, she really understood sacrifice of a king. Or a queen.
“Thor.” Her words failed her. But as if her heart knew the rest of this very simple spell, the truth of what she wanted pulsed in her veins. More. More. More.
Her mind raced ahead to all the difficulties, like the chirping frogs that popped up after a desert rain. She knew there’d been some doubts about her ability to lead the circle because of her physical strength even with her aunt’s blessing and support. And there’d been more mutterings when Brandy rejected a place in the circle and Gin decided on the shadow path. Shifters weren’t the only ones who clung to the old ways.
Rita straightened, taking hold of her crutch with one hand and Thor with the other. She’d stood up to the circle before, and she would do so again. If Thor had still been the king of the bear clan, she could imagine even more problems, the circle questioning who would have more authority. Now, she could take him as a lover, as witches were allowed to do. And if she just…never gave him up…
“I’m not man or bear,” he murmured. “Can I be enough for you?”
“You’re all I want,” she said. “Mine.”
She’d always believed the teachings of the circle about compassion, sharing, and balance, but she was very feeling very primitively possessive and a little bitey about making him hers.
He cupped her cheek. “I know I’d have to come second to your circle duties, and honestly, I came second in my life to the clan so it won’t be much of a change.” A faint smile flickered across his lips. “Not that I can change at all.”
“I never needed a king,” she assured him. “Thor, I want…”
Her voice stuttered as she stared up into his face. His eyes…
His wry smile flattened. “Rita, what is it?” His grasp tightened around her upper arms. “What’s wrong?”
That amber glow. She’d seen it before in his terrifying half-shifted shape as he’d battled his cousin, whenever the beast was rising in him. She’d pulled her aunt’s rifle on him then to force him away. She had nothing now.
But that wasn’t the threat that turned her blood to winter ice.
The rex ursi could never claim a witch as his mate.
With trembling fingers, she reached up to match his gesture, her thumb pressed to the side of that mouth that had brought her such pleasure in conversation, kisses, and promises. “Your eyes,” she whispered. “It’s the love spell. Your beast followed the call back to you.”
He frowned, shaking his dark head. “No, Rita. There’s no beast here, just me. I don’t blame you—”
She twisted in his embrace, glancing over her shoulder, feeling the moment he jerked his head up and followed her gaze in the way his arm tightened protectively behind her back. She knew her own eyes would be the same amber warning color as his. Even in the single moment they watched, the flames leaped higher.
The desert was burning.
Chapter 12
Thor tightened his grasp on Rita’s arm and hustled her back toward the row of darkened houses. “Looks like it started by the highway,” he said. “Hot engine spark, maybe, or some asshole’s cigarette butt.” He tightened his jaw. “If it’s on the other side of the road, the asphalt will act as a firebreak, at least for a little while.”
“And if it crosses? The wind is blowing this way.”
“Burning the cheat grass is fine. If it jumps into the taller brush we could be in trouble.”
With the glow of firelight burning out his night vision, it was too dark to accurately track the distance—a mile, maybe—but in his mind’s eye, he pictured the march of resin-thick creosote bushes and junipers toward the ponderosas, and the ponderosas rising to the mesa.
And town was right between two.
With his arm underneath her and fear as impetus, Rita moved quickly. “I’ll call the volunteer fire government as soon as I get inside,” she told him. “Then I’ll wake my sisters and be ready to move.”
“Yes. Load up the VW, just in case—”
“I meant we’ll be ready to fight the fire.” She didn’t stop walking but her fingers clenched painfully on his arm. “Aster and your cousins. They’re on a camp-out. They won’t have a cell signal.”
For a half-step, his stride faltered, and it was Rita’s grasp that kept him upright. “If they’re up on the mesa, they’ll see the fire and smell the smoke. My littlest cousin is safe with Mac and Ben.”
Even as he spoke the words, he knew they were true, and relief flowed through him. All this time, he’d been fighting with himself over the loss of the rex ursi and what it would do to the clan who’d been so wrecked by their unwitting complicity with his father’s terrible deal with the KGB.
But for the first time, he acknowledged there were others to help him if he needed them, if he asked them. The clan wasn’t only his responsibility—it was all of theirs. And if his father had understood that, and believed it, maybe the Kingdom Guard bastards would’ve never set their claws in Angels Rest. He might never be king, but he’d never make the mistake of underestimating his clan.
Just as he’d never take lightly the beautiful witch at his side.
The line of houses blocked their view out to the highway so he couldn’t tell how the fire was progressing or not, although a faint red glow reflecting from the dust in the air didn’t bode well.
At her back gate, Rita grabbed his hand. “Come inside,” she said, as if she thought he was going to run o
ff immediately. “We’ll make those calls. Does Gypsy have a phone? The roadhouse is closest to the highway. Maybe she can see what’s happening.”
He followed her in. “Let’s call Blaze Domingo too, have him open the office so we can have the work trucks and earthmovers if we need them.”
As they entered the kitchen, Gin was coming down the hallway, knuckling her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“We saw a fire out at the highway,” Rita said. “Were you waiting up for me?”
Gin shook her head, more to clear it, Thor guessed, then a negation. “Somebody has to pretend to be responsible sister when you two crazy kids are out wandering the night.” She reached for the old phone hardwired into the wall, more reliable than the sketchy cell phone service around the mesa. “I’ll call the fire department and see if they know about it.”
While Gin was on the phone with Thunder Cole, a thunderbird shifter who happened to be the volunteer on-call at the fire department, Brandy came down in her pajamas. She listened a moment, and then her sleep-flushed face paled. “Aster and Mac are out there,” she said in a tight voice. “I need to find them.”
“Brandy.” Thor caught her gaze and held it. “My cousin would never let any harm come to your boy,” he said in a tone that allowed no doubt. “He’ll be looking for you too, and he’ll come back to the den. You need to be here and ready for him.”
Her jaw clenched but she nodded. “Rita can drive you to the landscaping shop to grab your truck and then bring the VW back here.”
Rita shook her head. “Gin will take us and bring the bus back here,” she said. “I’m going with Thor.”
He swiveled to face her. “Rita—”
She held up one hand. “I can’t dig a fire break or chop down a burning tree, but I can drive a truck. This is my town too.”
Hadn’t he just been thinking along those lines? He grinned at her. “I can show you how to use the front-end loader, then you can do both.”
Gin hung up the phone and turned to them. “Thunder said Gypsy had already called it in, and it’s grown since they first spotted it. Some of the roadhouse regulars headed down there to see if they can put it out, but Thunder said he’d gladly take the Sunday Landscaping trucks to back up the water truck.”
